This is the year employers will be ever so cautious about adding many permanent employees to their ranks.

It sounds a lot like last year — and the year before that.

Yes, only 24 percent of employers expect to hire full-time, permanent staff in 2014, according to CareerBuilder’s annual survey of 2,200 hiring managers. In fact, that’s down a bit from last year at 26 percent.

What is predicted to go up somewhat this year is the hiring of temporary or contract works and part-time employees. Of more than 2 in 5 employers who plan to hire temp workers, 43 percent plan to turn some of those into full-time, permanent staff.

Overall, more employers in the West plan to hire, with 26 percent saying they’ll add full-time, permanent staff. The Northeast and Midwest are tied with 24 percent planning to add full-time permanent workers. In the South, 22 percent intend to add full-time permanent staff, down from 27 percent in 2013.

But a trend that continues to grow — and is most unnerving — is the widening skills gap when it comes to what companies need and the people they’re finding.

More than half of a subset of human resources managers who were surveyed said they now have positions for which they cannot find qualified candidates. Forty-six percent said these positions go unfilled for three months or longer.

You might conclude that these are technology jobs. Not necessarily, but most do require information-technology skills to do their jobs.

Some companies are filling the gap by hiring, then training people. Nearly half of employers said they plan to train hirees who don’t have experience in their industry or field.

But many smaller firms can’t afford to do that. So it’s a career imperative to investigate the most up-to-date knowledge required in your field.